Prebiotic Food Hack Providing Your Gut Health Needs

As we tell our children, they need to eat healthy foods, so they grow big and strong. Our gut bacteria need the same consideration. Everything we eat has a monumental impact on our intestinal flora. Either we can set up our gut for failure or success. For optimal gut bacteria growth, you need prebiotics. These fibers feed healthy intestinal flora. Learn more about a healthy gut diet plan by adding this banana prebiotics hack to your wellness routine.

What are Prebiotics?

No, this isn’t probiotics with a typo. Prebiotics are food for health-promoting bacteria, which are also called probiotics. These are carbohydrates that don’t break down during the digestion of food. Beneficial gut bacteria feast on these fibers. Therefore, your gut biome gets nourished with more healthy intestinal flora.

Not everything you eat are prebiotics. The typical Western Diet is rich in omega-6 heavy meats, allergen-rich bread and dairy, and artificial sweeteners.

All of this overconsumption of immunity triggers can lead to an inflamed gut biome. Essentially, this toxic environment kills off the healthy intestinal flora and feeds the pathogenic ones. Ultimately, this opens the gate for opportunistic gut bacteria to take over the system.

Therefore, consuming only probiotic supplements isn’t going to fix your gastrointestinal distress. They need a fighting chance to survive your gut biome by being fed. The only way to do this is to nourish them daily with prebiotics.

Some of the best food sources of prebiotics include:

• Jerusalem Artichokes
• Onions
• Garlic
• Leeks
• Dandelion Greens
• Barley Oat
• Dark Chocolate
• Chicory
• Fermented Foods
• Bananas

While these strong prebiotic foods are essential for a healthy gut diet plan, not many people are going to find many of these foods appealing. That’s why you need to fuel on the ones you do like. Bananas are easily accessible. Therefore, you should add bananas to your healthy gut diet plan.With that being said, banana prebiotics has different stages. Each has different nutritional content that will provide you with the energy you need to push you through your day. However, if you are not a big strong prebiotics food fan, you are going to need all the prebiotics you can get from bananas and additional supplementation. Follow this banana prebiotics hack to rebuild gut flora.

Banana Prebiotics Hack for Restoring Gut Flora

1.3 tons of food goes to waste every year 1. There are a number of reasons for this alarming statistic. Some are because of poor supply and demand analysis; others are because people throw out nutritional food that looks “ugly.” However, a big reason for this staggering amount of waste is due to miseducation.

A lot of us are misinformed on how to eat healthy foods strategically. We won’t eat something because it’s not ripe yet or throw it out when the food feels too mushy. These stages of a fruit’s life are essential for making the most out of this banana prebiotics hack.

Unripe Bananas for Gut Health

The trick for getting optimal benefits out of your prebiotics is to eat a banana when the peel is still green. We know. It’s firm, not very sweet, and tastes so wrong.

However, not everything is about you. This is about restoring gut flora.

Eating an unripe banana is ideal for creating good gut bacteria for weight loss. That’s because this fruit is low in sugar. Therefore, the carbs that are in the unripe banana won’t add to adipose (fat) tissue buildup. They’ll just provide nourishment for your good bacteria.

Starch Diet Benefits

On top of feeding good gut bacteria for weight loss, unripe bananas are rich in starch carbohydrates. Starches are great for keeping the waistline in check because they make us feel fuller longer. Therefore, we don’t feel the need to overindulge.

Recently, a study published in Nutrition Journal looked at the benefits of a heavy starch diet. They followed the vitals of volunteers over a week-long, low-fat meal plan that was 80% complex carbohydrates.

The results found,

“A low-fat, starch-based, vegan diet eaten ad libitum for 7 days results in significant favorable changes in commonly tested biomarkers that are used to predict future risks for cardiovascular disease and metabolic diseases.”

– Nutrition Journal

While biting into an unripe fruit isn’t ideal, it’s essential to get the most of your banana prebiotics hack. If you aren’t a fan of eating unripe bananas, throw them into a spirulina smoothie. Maybe you can toss some honey onto the unripe banana to sweeten it up. Perhaps even a kefir yogurt bowl? This combo with banana prebiotics is a dream meal for rebuilding gut flora.

Although an unripe banana is the best way to get your prebiotics for probiotics, it’s not the only way. Don’t toss your banana out when it’s fresh. There’s still plenty of banana prebiotics left in that fruit!

Ripe Bananas for Gut Health

When a banana gets mature, the sugar content increases. However, it’s still low on the glycemic index 3. Therefore, those with diabetes could even add banana prebiotics to their healthy gut diet plan.

Lastly, a ripe banana has more antioxidants than the unripe banana. Antioxidants are essential for fighting off free radicals. Therefore, eating a banana can help your body defend itself from the onslaught of illness.

Obviously, eating a ripe banana is a piece of (banana) cake. Admittedly, we all get a bit grossed out by browning bananas. However, there is still a load of banana prebiotics in that tropical fruit. So, don’t throw it out just yet. You can have your brown banana, and eat it, too!

Brown Bananas for Gut Health

When a banana’s peel becomes brown, we tend to write the fruit off as past its prime. However, there’s still plenty of vitamins and minerals in these gut health foods.

Early research on bananas and their effect on our health suggests that brown bananas have an elevated level of TNF (Tumor Necrosis Factor) 4.

TNF is a cytokine that our immune system produces. It creates a controlled bout of inflammation that destroys harmful gut bacteria. Then, the rest of the immune system puts the fire out, allowing the growth of beneficial intestinal flora.

The study stated,

“Banana extract administration resulted in a dose-dependent accumulation of neutrophils and macrophage activation. In the i.p. experiment, the priming effects on cytokine induction increased with maturity and were slightly more marked for the highland banana. In the p.o. administration experiment, the activity exhibited by the regular banana increased with maturity.”

– Food Science Technol.

If you don’t love a mushy banana, use it for baking. It’s a great thickening agent. Plus, it’s higher sugar content makes for some delicious treats. When your banana is far past expiration, please consider composting. Every bit goes a long way in helping the environment and ultimately, your gut health, too.

Also consider incorporating a gentle prebiotic fiber daily, such as RISE, which was scientifically formulated to deliver vital nutrients to the most impactful beneficial bacteria while additionally supporting the gut lining and weight management. 

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